The relationship between cinema and modernity in the Indian context is both complex and multifaceted. In this volume, some of the leading names in film and cultural studies explore its many dimensions.

The essays range from discussions of urbanity and film language to realism and the Indian city in Bengali films of the 1940s; from the cultural resonances of popular Hindi film songs and the idea of the ’city’ to realism and fantasy in cinematic representations of metropolitan Indian life; from cinematic aspects of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children to genre, narrative form and film style in contemporary Indian urban action films; from the complexities of female spectatorship to an analysis of the current primacy of Bollywood and finally, to the cultural impact and influence of Indian cinema on audiences outside India.